#7. Eyeroll fear, rejoining GDS
also a Chimpo relick, Womb, The Bees (again), scallops and leek vinaigrette
Hello!
After three months of talking to all the people and doing all the interviews and going through all the contracts I started a new job! Three months back at the Government Digital Service (GDS) where I worked from 2015 to 2018.
The last few months have been the first big chunk of non-holiday free time since being made redundant in 2011. I feel like I’ve made some life changes but I don’t know if they’ll survive the stress-test of going back to work.
Eyeroll fear
One of my struggles with writing this newsletter is fear of the eyeroll. Every week I’m scared of an imaginary reader who thinks I’m tedious/cringey. This fear has plagued me throughout my life. It came up in a chat with Emily Bazalgette about her newsletter last week so I’ve got thoughts.
One reason I’ve always struggled with fear of the eyeroll is because I want to be loved. This makes me susceptible to other people’s opinions in ways that can be harmful to me. I burned out in 2015 by not telling people that I was at capacity because I thought it would change what they thought about me. Then I went to counselling and one of the first things my counsellor asked me to do was say "no" to ten unimportant requests from people that loved me without saying sorry or giving a reason. I managed it 6 or 7 times. Next week she asked - did anyone stop loving you as a result? It was shocking (for me) to realise that, no, their love was not conditional on me saying yes.
Later I read a booked called The Courage To Be Disliked. I’ve been shy of talking about this book because the title brings to mind a specific type of person (usually male!) who courts controversy as a badge of honour and revels in their own ‘critical thinking’. I don’t want to be that person. This book isn’t about that. It’s an introduction to the psychology of Alfred Adler - as opposed to the psychologies of Freud and Jung - which challenges their cause-and-effect thinking in ways that are liberating (and sometimes terrifying). The part about ‘being disliked’ is not about being a dick with opinions but an invite to work out what you think about the world, understand ‘your tasks’ versus ‘their tasks’, and live in harmony with what you discover without being swayed by others’ expectations. I bring this book to mind every single time I fear the eyeroll.
Especially when I’m thinking about doing things from the heart because this hasn’t been straightforward for me. "Being my true self" or "not being two-faced" or "telling it how it is" are phrases that often precede appalling, unthinking behaviour from people. It’s a self-justifying circular argument - this is how I find myself behaving, but if this is my true self the behaviour is OK, so this must be my true self etc. I don’t want to be that person either. But what I was missing about doing things from the heart was how much time it took me to slow down to understand what I believed. Meditation did this for me in ways that no overt thinking activity ever has. Sitting and watching my thoughts for ten minutes a day for years - even with all the distractions and false starts - gradually accreted a sense of who I am deep inside myself (but also, weirdly, a sense of who I am that has been malleable too). It’s been this slow accretion that has given me the confidence to pursue my own weird path despite the fear of the eyeroll.
Also I’m getting old! One of the pleasures of middle age is the gradual realisation that things don’t matter as much as you once thought they did.
So, yeah, every week I struggle with my fear of the eyeroll. But then I fortify myself with my little parables - wanting to be loved, having the courage to be disliked, doing things from my heart, being so old I don’t have to care - and write it anyway. Eyerollers can always unsubscribe right?
Rejoining GDS
After a couple of months of not really working I started a new job this week:
It’s early days and I’m not going to share anything about the specifics of the work. But, still, I’ve got some first impressions.
It’s been a shock to join a large organisation again. Local Welcome was seven people, my friend’s startup was just three of us, but the digital identity programme alone has more than 50 people! The thing where you get everyone together for clarity and shared direction - fundamental to the way I think about product work - is SO much harder when (i) it’s not clear who ‘everyone’ is and (ii) people have busy diaries already. I’m going to have to spend a lot of my attention figuring this out (and soon).
It’s strange comparing my experience of joining GDS in 2015 with joining in 2021. Back then I was a pretty-much-unknown user researcher with a starry-eyed dream about what GDS represented. This time more people know me which is surreal (those blog posts have…travelled), I’m in a product role (feels like I need to get up to speed way quicker), I’m more senior (even more pressure to get going quickly) and I have a more complicated understanding of what GDS represents (for another time).
So I’ve been experimenting with being bolder, earlier, about what is going on and what needs to happen. This makes me pretty uncomfortable at times so I’m balancing this by asking people to correct me and tell me where I’m wrong. So far people have been generous in spirit and clear in their corrections which has helped me learn a ton of stuff way faster than I have in the past. An interesting lesson for me.
Also I’ve got a much better personal knowledge management approach this time and that helps. Looking at my surrogate electronic brain I’ve had 25 meetings, been given 24 ‘background’ documents to digest, and generated 30+ tasks that I need to do. I don’t feel panicked by this because I’ve got a system for that :)
Most of all though, I am grateful to Emily Labram for giving up a huge amount of time in what has been a crazy busy week for her to introduce me to people, explain things to me, listen patiently to my hot takes, and help me work out where to focus my energy. Inductions at GDS have always been chaotic affairs and that hasn’t changed. The only practical way to get through the first week is to have someone who is prepared to do the hard work to make things simple. Emily has been that person for me.
Also I am super-excited about the challenge ahead. It’s a big deal. More soon.
Listening
I’m a sucker for all the versions of Got Til It’s Gone and this being the Chimpo relick takes me back to raving in Manchester basements in the mid-2000s…
Watching
Clone (or maybe Womb?) is a sci-fi film set in the near future. A bit slow at times but the landscapes and seascapes were pure lockdown escapism.
Reading
Finally finished The Bees by Laline Paull. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book quite like it. It’s the story of life inside a beehive told from the perspective of the bees. I kept expecting it to have some kind of human-society analogy but it’s just a book from an animal’s perspective. Unusual.
Cooking
I made scallops with leek vinaigrette for Esther’s birthday because it’s a dish we ate on our 10 year annivesary in Paris in 2011. Obvs it wasn’t as good as the Paris version but it’s hard to go wrong with scallops.
Right, I meant to write this on Friday but spent the whole day decompressing. It’s just before 10am on Saturday morning so I’m gonna schedule it and then enjoy the rest of the weekend thinking (or not thinking) about other things.
Stay safe,
Will